TITLE: Alternate ending for Kelly Moreland's "Survivors"
AUTHOR: Vid Z.
PAIRING: Jack/Other
WARNINGS: mentions of past rape - clearly marked so you can easily avoid it, but unfortunately it was in the original fic so there was no way to avoid it - one of only two things I disliked in the original, the other was the not-JJ ending; contemplations of abortion
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc of the TV show Stargate: SG-1 are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this fic. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is an alternate Jack/Jessie ending to an apocafic by Kelly Moreland that was posted on ff. net from June to July 2007. This is an alternate Jack/Jessie (contrary to the original Jack/Sam) ending for this fic, written with Kelly Moreland's express permission for the ending of her fic. Have received the permission to write this ending when she finished posting her fic and because I was too busy then and then forgot about it I wrote it only a month ago. While I was still a die-hard JS shipper then Jessie had really grown on me, it was obvious that she'd fallen for Jack, they were great together and I liked her that's why I asked for an alternate ending of the fic to be written and when the idea was turned down I asked to be allowed to write the alternate ending myself and received the permission. So, 4 months later I'm presenting you the result.
The original fic can be found here (withouth the spaces):
http:// www. fanfiction. net/s/3620557/1/Survivors
AUTHOR'S NOTES #2: have to say, people, I'm disappointed. After having received so many wonderful reviews for all other chapters of "Jack's Christmas Miracle" I got only 3 (!) for the last part. Why so little? 15 members (!), a record for me, have put themselves on the story alert list for the fic and out of those 15 only 3 reviewed, with about 500 hits for the part. Am I the only one who thinks something's wrong here? Review and give me motivation to finalize other Jack/Rachel fics I have in the dry dock!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The first half of the original part 10 of "Survivors" by Kelly Moreland:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next morning dawned cold and dreary, but no rain in sight. I knew I couldn't escape the next seventy miles any longer. I dressed and packed my things, sitting down on the side of the bed after I was done. I tried, but couldn't stop the tears, it seemed to be all I was doing lately, crying over Jack but I had to get the tears out before I faced him.
All cried out I tapped my fingertips on his door, he opened it almost immediately.
"Good morning," he said with a formal little bow.
"Hi," I answered weakly.
"You OK? You look a little pale." he said, reaching out to touch my face.
I pulled away from him, turning my head.
"We better hit the road," I said, "We got a few miles left on this little journey, let's finish them Jack."
He was looking into my eyes and trying to figure out what was wrong. I couldn't very well tell him that I had regrets. I couldn't say that I felt no hope in being with him. In my heart he was already lost to Sam. Just like I had lost David years ago. When the phone rings in the middle of the night it is almost always bad news.
Getting on that trike and driving those last few miles felt like a bad dream I wanted desperately to wake up from.
Before I knew it, we were there.
Pulling up in front of this giant cave with armed guards standing in front of it. Just inside the arch of the cave stood a group of people that were separate from everyone else. I took off my helmet and watched them approach us. Jack's team. No doubt about it. I could tell each one of them by his stories and descriptions. Including Sam. Most of all Sam, and I felt instantly felt inferior.
VIDZ.'s ALTERNATE CONTINUATION OF THE ORIGINAL PART 10:
Jack first grabbed Daniel and gave him a manly hug, then Teal'c and when he hugged Sam something unexpected happened.
Their hug started out as I thought it would and just when I was about to turn around, not able to watch anymore, it happened.
Something changed.
The hug turned awkward suddenly, as if two strangers were embracing.
They let each other go with uncomfortable and perturbed looks on their face. And now they were standing there looking at each other confused as to what had just happened.
Jack had stuck his hands in his pockets and was rocking on the balls of his feet, barely able to meet her gaze.
My first instinct to flee and lick my wounds in solitude vanished in the face of the recent events and I couldn't move away even if someone was threatening me with a gun. Or a cannon.
Sam was meanwhile standing there as still as a statue, with her head tilted, and staring at Jack as if looking at a bug under the microscope. There was no sign of a woman looking at the man she'd loved for years, there was only an acquaintance staring at an acquaintance at best, strangers at most probable.
Then it hit me.
They actually were strangers now.
For years they shared everything, they were completely involved in each other's lives, had almost died together, survived together, were tortured together, faced the destruction of our planet together.
And there's that word, that important qualified.
Together.
They had faced those things together, as a team, but those things were miniscule comparing to the recent disaster.
Nothing can compare to seeing your whole world being destroyed before your very eyes.
It changes you.
It changed them, but it'd changed them separately. They didn't go through it together, like they'd gone through everything over the past few years, they hadn't even known if the other was alive. And everything since then had changed them further, but everything he'd experienced on his own and later with me had changed Jack the most.
He was no longer the man Sam loved, he was no longer the man who'd loved Sam. Neither was she the woman who'd loved Jack and the woman Jack loved. They were different, they were strangers in the bodies of loved ones.
And when Jack turned to look at me I gasped at what I saw in his eyes. True, the Old Jack loved Sam with everything he'd been, but the New Jack loved me. ME!
What we'd shared together, what we went through together, our love making the previous night, that was uncharacteristic for me since I never slept with a man I hadn't dated for at least two months, through all these experiences the Jack that was born when humanity had been decimated had fallen in love with me.
While I was struck dumb by all these events and these revelations Jack turned to me fully and beckoned me over.
As if in a daze I moved hesitantly over to them, casting a last look over to the trike as I went. It was official.
I was going nowhere, I would stay here. With Jack.
"Guys, I'd like you to meet Jessie." Jack introduced me while slinging an arm around my shoulders, enveloping me in a warmth that was both physical as well as emotional.
Teal'c and Daniel greeted me as kindly as one could ever greet a stranger.
Frankly, when her turn came, Sam surprised me. There was no resentment or hate or jealousy in her eyes when she greeted me, there was only understanding and sadness for what she'd lost, only because she didn't go with Jack to his cabin when he'd asked her again those 2 weeks ago.
Had it only been just 2 weeks?
Wow.
Just 2 measly weeks ago the world still stood, there were at least 6 billion people world wide. Now... now we're lucky if there's a million of us left.
The highest concentration of people were probably those remote areas that have little to no contact with the outside world, islands, jungles, forests, mountains, deserts. Places where they get only an occasional visitor. Places where they survived thousands of years of catastrophes and wars and illnesses.
Places that survived the end of humanity without a scratch.
And as Sam nodded as she shook my hand I knew we all would be okay. There was no need for me to leave and I decided to take Jack's offer and help with the cure. As he smiled at me I knew it was the right decision.
A MONTH LATER
It's been a little over a month since I came here to the SGC, a month and a half since the end of the world.
A lot has happened since then. When I first found out just how the virus had managed to get through to the outside world I was angry. Livid is the more accurate description.
I still can't believe just how lightly they took biological hazards. There was no quarantine, no sealed off embarkation room, no strict procedure, no nothing...
The only protocol they had was to stop by the infirmary, receive a short and basic check-up and give blood. That was it...
Then they were free to go shower and go home. Not even their clothes were burned, just washed with normal detergents.
No wonder that the virus got through and decimated the human race on this planet. When I found out I was angry and after giving their CMO, who ironically is an expert in virology and had designed their safety procedures, an earful l left for a remote part of the base, where Jack found me an hour later.
To think that my mother died, that almost the entire human race died, just because they put their operational capabilities before the safety of the planet... It's still something that gets me riled up whenever I think about it.
With a lot of effort I somehow overcame my resentment and now I'm working with Dr Frasier on the cure. But still there are many moments where I'm overcome with the thought that all this wouldn't be necessary had they not put their operational capabilities first before everything else.
All the base's efforts are aimed towards creating this cure, which leaves the rest of the people here standing around bored. Daniel is spending all of his time translating and cataloguing artefacts.
Teal'c is a warrior and since all gate activity has been halted for the future he has nothing to do, but spend his time in the gym.
While Jack is not just a warrior, but also an Astronomer, even he has nothing better to do than visit the gym. The Astronomy labs are closed now, as a part of the power consumption reductions and because some of the scientists have fallen prey to the virus. This is true for most of the other departments, all but the medical.
Which leaves Jack pretty much with nothing to do. Well, until I get off duty and then he spends all of his time with me, either just hanging out, or talking or making love. And we make love most of the time.
There's something I'm infinitely grateful for though. I got my period the day after we got here and again yesterday.
Normally this part of the cycle is something I never liked, nor was grateful for, but there was nothing I have ever been as ecstatic about as I was about waking up to cramps. It meant that I wasn't pregnant.
\ \ WARNING: mentions of past rape. /
What Michael did to me was the single most horrible thing I have ever gone through, second only to the death of everyone I ever knew. And the fact that he didn't get me pregnant was something that I'm thankful for every single second of every single day I live. Even though there's no doubt in my mind that I would've aborted it had I been pregnant, there's no way I would ever be able to be pregnant with, give birth to and raise my rapist's offspring. I know I'd always see Michael in his child and thus would probably never be able to love it. I know I'd never recover from what Michael did to me if he'd gotten me pregnant on top of everything else. I'm glad that I didn't have to go through the horror of knowing that I got pregnant from a rape. I was now able to leave it behind me and start the process of healing and moving on. Even though Jack told me horror stories about Doctor MacKenzie I have to admit that the good doctor knows his stuff. I still have months of healing and recovery before me, but I know that with MacKenzie's and most especially Jack's help I'll get through it and come out as the winner.
\ \ END OF DISTURBING TOPIC /
Jack... Jack's been a godsent, he's helped me through everything and every day I feel myself falling deeper in love with him. He's everything I ever wanted and everything I'll ever want and need and somehow I get the feeling he feels the same. The return of my monthly friend also erased the possibility of me being pregnant with Jack's baby from our first time and if I'm being honest I have to admit that I was relieved over it. Not that I would mind being pregnant with Jack's baby, just... not yet.
I know some would say that I'm avoiding my duty of helping repopulate this planet and those who are religious, which makes no-one within the SGC because of what they know who every religion's real gods are, would in their self-righteous indignation want me to burn in hell for preventing what they believe their God wants, but I don't care. I'm not ready to be a mother yet, no matter how much I love Jack, 'we' are not ready to be parents yet, neither as individuals, neither as a couple. Which is why I had Doctor Frasier give me a birth control implant. In a year, if we're all even still alive, I'll sit down with Jack and we'll talk about taking the implant out and trying for a baby.
I'm also not the only woman here who doesn't want children yet. Janet is on the pill even though she and Daniel are a couple, as are most other women on the base, they either have a job to do first, like finding the cure, or they are single or just not ready for motherhood.
One of those still single women is Sam.
I was honestly surprised by how good friends we've become, having feared that my relationship with Jack would cause tension between our two sides. One day during a girl's night in with a few other women she confided into me that she never wanted kids anyway. Her career has always been more important to her than kids and marriage anyway; her words not mine. Which is why she never risked her career or resigned or asked for a transfer so she could be with Jack. Thank god, for now I wouldn't have him and would probably be lying dead somewhere.
We're liberated women and we won't cave in to the pressure of the belief that we should immediately start popping out babies just because there's been a drastic reduction of population. When and if we'll have kids it'll be our decision.
Sam and I've become good friends since our meeting and even though I felt inferior to her the first time I met her, due to her intelligence and education, I no longer feel that way.
We're good friends, even though I have something she doesn't.
I have Jack and I always will.
THE END
REVIEW!